Urban living was a central concern for two directors much admired by Lynch. Billy Wilder’s comic take on sex in the city in Th e Apartment (1960) constructs “a world” to which Lynch repeatedly refers, while Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Rear Window (1954) place murder, voyeurism and a critique of cinema itself within their claustrophobic environs. 17 Regarding Rear Window , Lynch says, “even though I know what’s going to happen I love being in that room.” 18 For Lynch, the interior built and fi lmed by Hitchcock is so powerful he feels he has literally occupied the space: the apartment and the movie theater have merged. At the same time, Rear Window promotes the urban apartment as another viewing mechanism, a theater box from which L. B. Jeff ries can watch the city, but a world that cannot remain permanently secluded. Likewise, the boundaries between the observer and the observed are perilous in Lynch’s work.
In the case of Eraserhead , earlier infl uences are at play, too. As the previous chapter noted, Henry mimics Chaplin and Keaton, whose anxious relations with architecture included the inability to establish an eff ective home. For instance, Th e High Sign (dir. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline, 1921) presents the home as a labyrinth full of pitfalls, and Keaton’s most famous trick—executed in Steamboat Bill Jr. (dir.
Charles Reisner, 1928) and later re- enacted by the artist and fi lm- maker Steve McQueen in Deadpan (1997)—entails a house tumbling down around him. Keaton, described by Deleuze as the “Dadaist architect par excellence ,” continually traces the contours of his homes to expose their fragile nature. 19
It is, however, in Kafk a and not Keaton that we fi nd the most insightful companion to Lynch’s urban rooms. Kafk a’s work is fi lled with staircases and gates, waiting rooms and corridors, offi ces and courts—an architecture of the unsettled, the transient and the perplexed. Th e prevailing spatial anxiety in his fi ction is an ambivalent homesickness shared by many of Lynch’s protagonists. In particular, both Kafk a and Lynch explore the alienation of a single urban room.
Lynch has oft en discussed his abandoned adaptation of Kafk a’s
“Metamorphosis” (1915), via a script that transfers the tale to the 1950s. 20 In 1991, the director apparently designed and built a giant cockroach in preparation for the project. 21 Barry Giff ord claims “Metamorphosis” was in mind when he and Lynch planned Lost Highway , and traces of this inspiration lurk in the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton. 22 Assessing Eraserhead and Th e Elephant Man , though, it becomes evident that Lynch has little need to adapt Kafk a’s story when his earliest fi lms negotiate such similar terrain. In mapping the urban rooms of Gregor Samsa, Henry Spencer and John Merrick, we encounter three visions of the claustrophobia, and possible comforts, of the confi ned family home.
Th ese tales are grounded in an urban framework; they feature domestic architecture with both symbolic and material power; and, like Bachelard, they navigate the intimate relationship between day- dreaming and the home.
Philadelphia, where the row- house rules, is not a city famed for its apartment blocks. 23 Our fi rst impression of Henry’s apartment building in Eraserhead , at the end of his walk through urban wastelands, is not encouraging. Th e block resembles an abandoned factory with bricked- up windows and no external hints of domesticity. When Henry closes the entrance door, it sounds like a gunshot and the building is sealed as if it were a tomb. Th e lobby, however, maintains a faded glamor—refl ecting the Art Deco styles of Callowhill, where decorative touches compensate for industrial rawness—while the distinctive fl oor pattern anticipates the Red Room in Twin Peaks . Framed in the lift , the doors of which are thickly varnished with an ominous Gothic tinge, Henry seems primed for transportation to another universe.
Koolhaas reminds us that the elevator, the invention of which changed spatial hierarchies in the city irrevocably, was fi rst presented to the public as “a theatrical spectacle.” 24 For Henry, the lift is a theater of cruelty, in which he is trapped as an unwilling performer surrounded by fl ickering lights and rumbling noises. Th e tight and windowless corridor leading towards his room further exacerbates feelings of constriction. Henry is tunneling deeper into the building, searching for sanctuary. Indeed, one imagines him reaching his room and exclaiming, like the self- proclaimed
“old architect” who narrates another Kafk a story: “I have completed the construction of my burrow and it seems to be successful.” 25
Th e Royal London Hospital, a grand Victorian structure looming proudly over the capital’s factories, hosts Merrick’s room in Th e Elephant
Man —a small space in the attic ( Figure 2.2 ). 26 Later, although housed in larger quarters, Merrick ignores adjoining rooms, never venturing beyond the minimum space needed for inhabitation. Aft er a lifetime of incarceration, he remains locked into the idea of a solitary cage. Moreover, by focusing on the hospital’s corridors and furnace, Lynch emphasizes the connections Merrick’s new home shares with the industrial warehouse where he is fi rst seen by Treves. At times, the hospital feels like another factory, with Lynch—ever alert to how a building breathes and sweats—
highlighting the rushing winds and random thumps of its heating system.
As London society begins to visit Merrick in his new home, one astute nurse acknowledges the similarity with his previous role in the circus:
“He’s only being stared at all over again.” It is no surprise, therefore, that Merrick’s last night in London, the culmination of a life in captivity, is spent in a theater box. Th is is a venue that, as Colomina explains, existed for Adolf Loos “at the intersection between claustrophobia and agoraphobia.” Th e theater box, like the interior of the Loosian or Lynchian home, provides both “protection and draws attention to itself.” 27 Observation, from curious crowds, probing doctors or bourgeois hypocrites, structures Merrick’s entire life.
Th e location of the Samsa household in Kafk a’s “Metamorphosis” is unknown. We never learn the city or the country in which the story takes place, beyond a pointed reference to the family apartment being on a
“quiet but decidedly urban” street. What is revealed is a peculiar form of spatial disorientation. Gregor’s physical state is itself depicted in architectural terms—“his dome- shaped brown body, banded with reinforcing arches”—while the site of his transformation is originally
FIGURE 2.2 The Elephant Man : Merrick in his tiny attic room.
described as “a normal though rather too small human room.” Th is, then, is another minimal dwelling. However, as Gregor’s altered physical state aff ects his perception, these surroundings shift and enlarge. His bedroom is subsequently described as “the high- ceilinged spacious room.” Th e environment feels entirely governed by the psychological status of its inhabitant, so that its volumes morph like a warped Raumplan . As his room becomes increasingly cell- like—the doors are locked, the furniture is removed and dirt is allowed to fester—Gregor is cut off from the outside world. Isolated from his family, who (like many in Th e Elephant Man ) cannot cope with such deformity, Gregor’s imprisonment evokes
“an anguish he could not account for, since it was, aft er all, the room he had lived in for the past fi ve years.” Th e entire apartment also becomes a fi nancial prison for the Samsa family, unable to move to a more aff ordable home because of Gregor’s condition. 28
Th e urban nature of Gregor’s plight, an indication that his anguish is linked to a wider anxiety concerning modern spatial forms, is exemplifi ed by his relationship with the street outside. Kafk a’s description of the city’s intruding technology closely resembles Lynch’s urban rooms: “Th e light of the electric street lamps fl ickered pallidly on the ceiling and the upper parts of the furniture but down where Gregor lay it was dark.” Although Gregor reminisces about the “sense of freedom looking out of the window had once given him,” that view was actually depicted earlier in
“Metamorphosis” in less liberating terms: “clearly visible on the other side of the street was a section of the endless, grey- black building opposite—it was a hospital—with its regular windows harshly piercing its façade.” 29 Any comforting thoughts Gregor has are undermined by an uncompromising urban setting: escape, even by day- dreaming, appears impossible.
Compare this with Henry’s room in Eraserhead , graced with buzzing light bulbs, a humming radiator and a bleak view. Once again, modern urban forms have enclosed the apartment dweller in a hostile chamber. In customary fashion, Lynch places these electrical and industrial processes alongside natural forms. Henry’s apartment is a strangely lush environment where mounds of soil and stacks of hay are found, where windows are covered in steam and liquids bubble furiously. Th ese elements induce a confusion between the natural and the man- made, suggesting a bizarre form of urban nest. Indeed, Bachelard’s characterization of the nest as “a precarious thing,” but an environment that provokes “ daydreaming of security ” is apt here. For, faced with hazardous surroundings, Henry day- dreams that his radiator houses a
sanctuary. Yet, Bachelard’s claim that apartments are less aff ected “by the storms of the outside universe” is contradicted by the howling weather and brutal violence Henry sees outside his room. 30 In this respect, his home represents the type of intimate refuge Bachelard, who preferred multi- story houses, deems impossible of the modern apartment. As Lynch himself admits, “to me, even though there was plenty of ambiguous torment in Henry, his apartment—actually, his room—was, you know, fairly cosy. It was just this one little place he had to mull things over” 31 ( Figure 2.3 ). Equally, this applies to Gregor, who is only in physical danger when he ventures into the rest of the family home. Th ese cells are highly restrictive, but they protect their residents from external threats.
Merrick’s room is more vulnerable to outside forces, both creative and terrifying in nature. His window, at the frontier between public and private realms, allows for nocturnal torment, as groups of drunken Londoners stare at his distorted features. In these scenes, Merrick’s room becomes a dramatic stage, with the window ledge as a makeshift theater box. Th e usual rules of urban voyeurism are reversed and the city looks inwards at Merrick’s performance. As L. B. Jeff ries discovered in Rear Window , when his room was breached by a murderer, there is no such thing as a secure spectator. Merrick’s ostensibly safe accommodation remains, like all Lynch’s homes, porous.
Yet, the window generates imaginative activity, too. Inspired by his partial view of St Philip’s Church in Whitechapel, Merrick constructs a
FIGURE 2.3 Eraserhead : Henry mulls things over.
wooden model of the building, using his imagination to complete features that remain out of sight. Indeed, the real- life Joseph Merrick built a number of such models using Victorian kits, one of which survives today in the Royal London Hospital’s archives (Plate 22). In Lynch’s fi lm, the model church takes on mounting signifi cance, as Merrick fashions an idyllic piece of architecture to compensate for the harsh realities of Victorian London. On this issue, Bachelard’s thinking is again instructive:
Miniature is an exercise that has metaphysical freshness; it allows us to be world conscious at slight risk. And how restful this exercise on a dominated world can be! For miniature rests us without ever putting us to sleep. Here the imagination is both vigilant and content. 32 Merrick longs to sleep “like normal people.” His model- making is a small victory against a world that continually denies him nocturnal comfort.
Constructing the church allows Merrick to be “world conscious at slight risk” and “both vigilant and content.” He has total control over at least one environment in his life. In the closing moments of Th e Elephant Man , as Merrick dies in his bed, the camera moves solemnly through this wooden sculpture, savoring its forms. It is this architectural artifact, a product of intimate day- dreaming, that is Merrick’s ideal home.
Th e model church is also evidence of Lynch’s close attention to domestic objects, a subject we will return to throughout this chapter. Th e tiny dimensions of Merrick’s apartment expand with a growing number of gift s. His room is soon decorated with ornately framed paintings and photographs, hardback books and fl owing curtains—the furnishings of a conventional bourgeois dwelling. Indeed, Merrick appears to be mimicking the elaborate décor of Treves’ home aft er his “tour” of the doctor’s house.
As a further illustration of how Lynch’s architecture conditions social relations, the apparent “civilization” of Merrick’s domestic space goes hand- in-hand with the rising acceptance of his physical appearance, fi rst by the hospital staff and then by the wider community. Previously, the nurses considered interaction with Merrick to be “like talking to a brick wall,” but, surrounded by gilded knick- knacks, he holds greater social potential. Th e rather pathetic nature of Merrick’s design gestures is Lynch’s way of ridiculing Victorian class- based hypocrisy through the very objects it prizes. Th e most conspicuous of these is the luxurious dressing case presented to Merrick. Such grooming apparatus demonstrates the social importance of taming physical irregularities. In this context, Geoff
Andrew promotes an autobiographical reading of Th e Elephant Man , which sees Merrick’s social progress as refl ecting Lynch’s (temporary) switch from freakish experimentation in Eraserhead to mainstream fi lm- making. 33 Since then, Lynch’s work has continually articulated a tension between the artistic grooming demanded by studio bosses and an inclination towards abstraction and poetic imagery. A tidy room, it seems, is required for a mass audience. Yet, just as Merrick’s respectable home leads to his acquiescence with death, then Lynch is wary that a well- mannered fi lm ultimately indicates creative demise.
Th at Merrick’s domestic troubles erupt most fi ercely at night—a space and time designed for recuperation and reverie—invites further comparisons between Lynch’s approach and those of Kafk a and Bachelard.
In Kafk a’s “Th e Burrow” (1931), the “little round cells” the protagonist constructs are described in a sentence that could fi gure in Th e Poetics of Space : “Th ere I sleep the sweet sleep of tranquillity, of satisfi ed desire, of achieved ambition; for I possess a house.” Here, “the house protects the dreamer” impeccably, during the day and at night. Simultaneously, this bunker, a rural labyrinth rather than an urban room, produces a heightened awareness in its inhabitant, which rejects the slumbers of the outside world: “it is as though at the moment I set foot in the burrow I had wakened from a long and profound sleep.” 34 It is, lest we forget, “uneasy dreams” that prefi gure physical transformation in “Metamorphosis,” an unrest that becomes permanent: “Gregor spent the nights and days almost entirely without sleep.” 35 Written by a notorious insomniac, Kafk a’s
“Metamorphosis” can be read as a manifestation of fevered reverie and nocturnal despair. If, then, Bachelard’s ideal house shelters day- dreaming, and Henry’s room is “one little place he had to mull things over,” perhaps Gregor’s room also off ers an exemplary domestic space: an intimate arena where fantasmatic day- dreams have taken hold. Crucially, though, Kafk a—like Lynch, but unlike Bachelard—remains highly aware that fantasies can just as easily be traumatic as transcendent.
Shot chiefl y at night, Eraserhead off ers additional nocturnal insights.
Th e institutional iron- framed bed that dominates Henry’s room is, alternately, too large and too small for him and Mary. One shot, from Henry’s perspective, shows a vast landscape between the couple as they lie amid the sheets, a harrowing vision of marital estrangement. Later, they are shown fi ghting for space and blankets. Th e confi nes of the family home are most apparent on these dark nights, with Henry’s sweet sleep murdered by the baby’s horrifi c cries. Alongside such constraints, Lynch
also presents the bed as a platform for pleasure. When Henry sleeps with his neighbor, it becomes an immersive ring of steam and water, as if such fertility is only possible with the family unit disrupted. In fact, throughout Lynch’s career, the bed has remained a prime location. Th e psychological states it has induced include adolescent anxiety in Th e Grandmother (a fi lm Lynch made as a student in 1970), incestuous recognition in Fire Walk With Me , frantic suicide in Mulholland Drive , erotic union in Wild at Heart , and sexual humiliation in Lost Highway .
Henry’s dysfunctional marriage is the fi rst of many irregular family units in Lynch’s cinema. Families, for Lynch, are the home of incest, sibling rivalry and murder. Young children are a rare commodity in his work and are oft en actively absent: Dorothy’s son has been kidnapped in Blue Velvet , for example, while, in Th e Straight Story , Rose’s children have been removed by local authorities. Th is makes Henry’s room, haunted by the realities of fatherhood, all the more intriguing. Th e screams of his baby, an alien- like creature as indefi nable as Gregor Samsa, reverberate within the tiny dimensions of the apartment, turning a sanctuary “to mull things over” into a place of persecution. Indeed, when one of Henry’s dreams ends with him behind a courtroom bar, accused of an unknown crime, we are again reminded of Kafk a. Like Josef K, torn between sexual desire and the responsibilities of his case in Th e Trial (1925), the demands of fatherhood inhibit Henry’s ability to satisfy other appetites. Each time he tries to leave his room, the baby’s cries grow louder and Henry worries this will ruin his relationship with his neighbor. Just as Gregor’s father becomes stronger with his son incapacitated, the family home in Eraserhead is incapable of satisfying both parent and child. Notably, Lynch himself slept on the set of Eraserhead when his own fi rst marriage began to fall apart. 36 In fact, Lynch claims the “world reveals itself more”
when one literally lives inside the spaces of a fi lm set. 37 Here, the boundary between domestic space and the screen is again removed, with Henry’s room metamorphosing into Lynch’s home.
In Th e Elephant Man , Merrick’s most intimate cravings remain a permanent home and family. Th e traveling circus condemned him not only to degraded accommodation, but also to a warped family model. His
“owner” Bytes claims the two are “business partners”—a relationship that encompasses sporadic aff ection, recurrent violence and fi nancial dependence. By contrast, the hospital’s governing committee is praised for providing Merrick “with a safe and tranquil harbour, a home.” When Merrick is eventually granted a permanent place there, one nurse
exclaims, “Welcome home, lad.” Th ere is a sense of destiny here, a suggestion that Merrick is returning to an original setting that was always waiting for him. Yet, this “home” had to be earned, through Shakespearean recitals, personal grooming and the correct furnishings. It is a space as socially conditioned and psychologically charged as the “neighborhood”
in Blue Velvet . Merrick’s death, at the end of an evening when he has received a standing ovation from a theater audience, comes when he feels
in Blue Velvet . Merrick’s death, at the end of an evening when he has received a standing ovation from a theater audience, comes when he feels